For most of his life, Ryan has dedicated his time to giving back to his community. The list is so long his son Brad said it’s hard to keep track.

He has sat on numerous committees, including the Burnaby North Community Association, anti-graffiti, Comshare, Hats Off Day, the Optimist Club, Coats for Kids, Block Watch and many more.

For 20 years, Ryan was Santa for the kids at the Lochdale Community School and dressed up in the red suit. He helped fund the school’s seniors’ tea and pancake breakfast. During the summer, he’d run Comshare, a children’s six-week camp that featured sports, cooking, crafts and day trips to fun locations like the aquarium and Cultus Lake.

For a decade, Ryan organized Kool Down, a free swim for teens on Friday nights at the Kensington pool. For $1, youth were given a pop and a hot dog. Meanwhile, through the Optimist Club and the Burnaby North Community Association, he provided upwards of $20,000 worth of food hampers over the last 10 years at Christmastime. Ryan also helped start up the food bank at Confederation Centre some 15 years ago, which has since moved to St. Timothy’s Anglican Church. A few years later, he started an emergency food bank out of Cliff Avenue United Church, accessible to anyone young and old.

He and his wife Lou are the kind of people to open their home to strangers, people who are down on their luck and have nowhere to go, noted Brad.

Everyone is welcome -please share and spread the word, Ken Ryan is truly a man that deserves to be celebrated!